Coworker: I don’t know if it’s an allergy, but my mouth and lips swell up whenever I eat cantaloupes or watermelons.
me: yeah… that’s an allergy.

I’ve watched some episodes of Travel Man recently and there have been a couple of times where Richard Ayoade has been near horses and he’s had an allergic reaction. Imagine that. I never heard of anyone being allergic to horses before, but there are probably a lot of people who are. I could be, who knows? I’ve only been near horses a handful of times in my life and I’ve always kept my distance.

I do know I am allergic to something in lipstick and henna. I haven’t found an animal or food that I am allergic to. Perhaps I am allergic to elk. Or pandas. Imagine meeting a bear in the wild and playing dead like you’re supposed to. The bear isn’t out for blood but he comes up to see what your deal is and you start sneezing! You could’ve been friends.

All 417 weeks of 2017 have gone by so fast. I can’t believe there are only 16 more weeks left this year.

There have been highs. There have been extra super highs. There have been lows lower than you think lows could be. But we’ve almost made it. I think if we learned anything from this past 948 weeks, it’s that we just have to keep going.

I went to two comedy festivals by myself. One in Austin and one in San Francisco. I saw Electric Six live twice, got to hang out with them, had a private two song acoustic set from Dick Valentine. I bought Trevor Dunn’s notes from when he wrote “Retrovertigo”. I saw Dead Cross live. I can’t remember how many times I’ve seen Mike Patton live now. It’s well into the 20’s. I went to “Walmart Academy” twice. Went back to San Francisco with my sister Jamie where we saw Kasabian live. I can’t express how exciting that was. I’ve backspaced over 27 exclamation points. I spent Halloween freezing in the pouring rain seeing LCD Soundsystem live. A few weeks ago, we went up to Dallas to see Glassjaw play for about 40 minutes and then we came right back- we left before the headliner came on! A few days after that, some little kid set fire to the store I work in. I had to spend the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving Day working at a different Walmart and it was a nightmare. It taught me a lot about something I have been consciously trying to do this year- this horrible year in the history of the world- I’ve been trying to be nicer. We all need to be nicer to each other.

Think about how many people you encounter in your day. They are all going through stresses in varying degrees. There’s no reason to try to add to that. It’s difficult to try to spread calmness and be nicer. Sometimes I get frustrated or overwhelmed and I’m trying not to shut down and meltdown in those situations. I feel like I’ve made some strides in the right direction this year and I hope to continue in 2018.

I cut my hair a little too short for some of it to stay in my normal work ponytail and the slight change in the way I put up my hair has sent shockwaves through the fresh perimeter of the store. For three days, anyone who saw me shouted “There’s something different about you!!”

It’s funny, because when just continued to wear my normal ponytail after I had 12″ cut off the length people didn’t notice for several weeks.

There are some girls who change their hair twice a week. I wonder if they get those comments or if it’s just reserved for someone who looks the same for years.

I had my birthday last week. I went into a new age range on forms. I’m not sure if I have been going through a midlife crisis for the last year or if it’s just the general fear most people are having that the world could end at the drop of a hat. :shrug: Is it a midlife crisis or an end of the world crisis? Either way, I still haven’t been to Machu Picchu.

You’re really only as old as the sound you make when you pick up the dog’s water bowl. I’ve been trying to stay young by spending time every day silently gathering grapes and onion peels off the ground while I’m at work. On my days off, it’s hair ties and laundry.

She played MASH when she was a young girl. Planned her future wedding. Decorated her future house (or shack or apartment or mansion). Named her six (or two or three or twelve) future children- The girls were named after things of beauty and the boys had rugged last names for first names. She picked out their favorite sports and favorite colors. She imagined her future life as a loving mother and caring wife, creating meal plans that took all pickiness and food allergies into account. She knew it wasn’t all going to be a breeze. She imagined working as a team with her husband Brad Pitt (or Ben Affleck or Patrick from math class or Mauricio the janitor) to make it through those times when little Carson was acting up in the SUV (or Ferrari or Cadillac or 1987 Toyota pickup truck). But mostly, she imagined the birthday party themes and Mother’s Day gifts.

Never did she imagine that one day she would have to look back in the lunch meat section of the grocery store and yell at her fourth child, “Melody! GET YOUR FACE OFF THAT!”

It’s only Tuesday! My sleeping pattern and sense of time is all wacky since I’m back at the Walmart Academy for (most of) the week. I’ve got to go into work at 7:30 instead of noon, but my mind is still coming up with crazy ideas at midnight.

I’ve got a great idea for fixing the NaNoWriMo novel I wrote in 2011 and just put away. I’m going to take out a great deal, add the only part I wrote for my 2012 novel (I only got like 3000 words in that year), and then add some things that have been running through my head recently.

Now the only question is do I wait for November to write it in 30 days or just start on it now? I think I’ll just do it as soon as I can. I think it’s a pretty cool idea.

My sister and I are heading out to San Francisco on Friday to see Kasabian on Sunday night. Then we’re coming back home on Monday. We just need to do things like that sometimes. I’m getting prepared by listening to the live Underdogs concert from For Crying Out Loud: Deluxe. It’s so good. I love it so much. This weekend is going to be so awesome!

I’m going to have to go right back to work on Tuesday for inventory. Then I’ll start on my novel on Wednesday. 😉

Yesterday at work I was was in the backroom and I heard our second Frozen/Dairy truck pull up to the dock. The driver hit the bay door a couple of times trying to back in. And then a few minutes went by and he hit a different bay door. This happened several times. The guy was trying to find the best door to park in, I guess? Then, I opened one of the doors to see where he was and he was about 15 feet from the door, not moving either way.

My manager opened the back door where the drivers walk in, thinking he was going to walk around. I looked out and saw the driver leaving! He must have been at the wrong store.

Three hours later, he was back. I opened the door to let him in and asked the normal “Which door are you in?” and he looked so lost. I motioned to the area with the bay doors- the only area with bay doors- and I asked, “is it one of those?” and he said he thought so.

I opened the door two and it was the right one! The driver said, “Are you going to unload this truck?”

Normally, I get super irritated with comments like that. The drivers who ask that usually try to tell me how to use the power equipment that I’ve been using for over 10 years. But this dude- there was something different and I really needed to see where this was going.

I have 5 pallets, he tells me. This has been the worst truck of his life. EVERYTHING fell over. He didn’t bring up the fact that he’d been at this store earlier trying to learn how to park.

He was confused about which pallets belonged to our store, so I pointed out the stickers with the store numbers. They usually take part of the sticker off to put on their paperwork to help them keep track of what’s coming off. This guy didn’t. He lost track several times. I assured him I’d taken off five. Two frozen, 3 dairy. He still looked like he didn’t know where he was. I showed him the store numbers on the other pallets. I signed his paperwork (in all the correct spots!) He forgot my paperwork in the cab of his truck so he had to go outside and slide it under the bay door as he was leaving.

Guys, I think I met Scott Bakula after he’d just Quantum Leaped into a Walmart truck driver.